


From The Depths Of Emptiness

by Fellusion, vicen_non



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Crosstale | XTale (Undertale), Anti-Void, Doodlesphere, Dreamtale Nightmare Sans (Undertale), Dreamtale Sans | Dream (Undertale), Errortale Sans (Undertale), Gen, Horrortale Sans (Undertale), Inktale Sans (Undertale), Killer Sans (Undertale) - Freeform, Multiverse, Plot Centric, anti-hero nightmare, cause we need more nightmare-centric fics out there, maybe some relationships later but for now its hella
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-06
Updated: 2020-06-18
Packaged: 2021-03-02 20:54:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,194
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24033100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fellusion/pseuds/Fellusion, https://archiveofourown.org/users/vicen_non/pseuds/vicen_non
Summary: “You really hate those weirdos, huh?” Killer snickered as he twirled his fork around some pasta. “What would it take for you to ever team up with Ink and Dream?”Nightmare barely hesitated with his answer, leaning back in his chair. “You’d have to bring the end of the multiverse.”Horror spoke between bites. “Be careful, boss, you might jinx yourself with that one.”“As if. Error’s the biggest threat this multiverse has, and that’s really saying something.”--Nightmare is dragged into a multiversal-wide calamity, facing an unknown force driving the multiverse to extinction. Against all odds, facing defeat, the remaining outcodes are driven to make a very drastic choice in order to preserve existence as they knew it. A second chance.
Comments: 18
Kudos: 57





	1. Empty House

**Author's Note:**

> In a bout of sheer will, me and my friend Vi have decided to write a fic together!
> 
> I'm highkey excited to write this tbh- there aren't enough anti-hero Nightmare-centric fics out there.

“On your right!” 

Dream’s voice rang through the darkness, golden arrows following his release. Ink spun around, now back to back with Dream. Error was busy trying to hold something together with his strings, cussing up a storm as his feet slipped just a little more. It glitched, deep and pained. Something was collapsing at the seams, surrounding them, caging them.

Nightmare took a step back, his tentacles attentive and waiting for the signal. Several tendrils curled protectively around his group, his face twisting into a scowl. The entire world seemed to shudder beneath their feet, Ink letting out a yelp as he struggled to keep his footing. Dream pushed back against him.

“Steady, Ink! We can’t be falling this soon!”

Ink chuckled, exasperated. “Sorry Dreamboat, I can’t help myself!” He threw an attack in the direction Dream shot an arrow, the dim gold glow allowing the duo to spot something dart past. He slices through the air with purple paint. 

There’s the sound of hissing and static. 

At this point, he should feel triumphant or victorious for hitting it, but the emotion is wavering. His eyes, flickering rapidly, flicker down to his sash unwittingly, and he grits his teeth. 

Picking himself out of his thoughts quickly, Ink pipes up with a cheerfully sarcastic word. ”This place doesn’t seem to be holding together as well as we thought.” He turned slightly toward Error, who was just barely out of sight, keeping flashing eyes out for the enemy. “How’re you holding up?”

Sandals braced against the ground, Error grimaced, pulling on his strings. The low timbre of his voice rattled deep in his throat, forming a growl. “Not… great!” He gritted. Chipped hands were shaking from exertion, their slender fingers wrapped in thin blue thread. 

“I don’t know how much I’ll be able to hol-”

His last word clipped out, stuttering into silence. Ink listened to him slip, being dragged away into the darkness. A quiet pit formed in his chest. He stared out into the void surrounding them, and tried his best to remember what the color of Error's hands and scarf were moments before they disappeared from his peripherals. He didn’t want to forget.

Dream’s warning to stay on guard caught in his throat. Nightmare could feel the cold that flashed through the other two against him, and knew too well the chill that raced through their rib cages. He felt it in his own bones, and used it as strength.

The remaining three quickly moved into a different formation; backs against each other as they stared into the darkness. Another arrow is notched, bow lifted in anticipation. Hands at the ready by vials. Tendrils, shaped to protect, and sharpened at their ends. 

Silence.

A noise from the right, Dream fired, though with little fanfare. He missed. Eyes scan the darkness for any tells.

Silence.

The glitching continued all around them, more vigorous now. Ink held his breath, readying his brush. Nightmare’s tendrils wavered slightly at a slight discrepancy in the white noise. He tensed, Ink and Dream following his lead with still chests.

...Silence.

Error was hurtled from the abyss, tumbling to Nightmare’s feet. Nightmare’s eye widened.

“WATCH OUT!!”

It took Nightmare a few moments to realize he was on the ground. His head was swimming, his eye blearily searching for something to see. After trying to absorb the barely perceivable blobs of color for a few moments, his eye slowly shut again.

“Nightmare!! Nightmare!” He heard. His brother, likely, considering how irritating the voice was. 

(He didn’t have the energy to smirk at that jab.)

He could hear Error in the distance yelling something profane. Footsteps echoed all around him, and paint splattered on the ground, spraying nearby. 

He fell out of consciousness briefly, fighting to regain his senses again. 

This time, things were quieter. He couldn’t tell if it was because of the fact that he was dying or because people around him were dead. He was tired.

“This is our only choice,” was said, somewhere in the distance. Error, out of breath, Nightmare concluded with a pause. 

“We can’t win, we have to. Anything is better than whatever hell is waiting for us here. We’ll get a second chance.”

“Error, we’re so close,” He could hear Dream say, choking on his next words. His voice was so raw. “We can’t give up now!” his voice rose in volume. Was his brother still next to him?

“And be left with what? Nothingness? Emptiness? Everything’s gone, Dream!” Error screamed back, his words muddying as Nightmare lost his ability to process speech. 

“Even if we win there’s nothing left for us anyway. We lost! I’m fucking doing it!” 

His brother’s next words were mangled by the emotion he could feel, just out of touch, bursting out of Dream. All he could hear was ringing, now, mixed in with muffled thumps of something attempting to reach him.

He slipped out of consciousness in utter silence.

With a final rush of air, the multiverse held its breath.

And released.

\---------------

The ringing returned again, much to Nightmare’s annoyance. He felt like he had just been tossed into a washing machine and rinsed with positivity-infused soap. 

Grumbling, he blearily opened his eye, taking a moment to focus before he blinked. 

Paper? 

Wood? 

He realized he had his head on a desk. Specifically, his desk. The daylight shined through the curtains of his window, casting familiar shadows and patterns onto the wood beside him.

He pulled himself into a proper sitting position. It was his office. Definitely an odd sight, after he literally just died. 

Maybe this was his hell? Forever proofreading his notes and judging battle plans? 

He looked out the window of his castle, seeing the familiar dirt road leading out to the forest. 

It felt like a dream, but he knew he couldn’t have simply thought it all up. Error must have done something, he heard him arguing with Dream before he lost consciousness again. He needed to find him. 

He eyed the papers on his desk, skimming his own handwriting. These were the notes he had taken during their final meeting before the battle. There were a lot of peticularities with what Dream had in mind. It was a bit outlandish, but at the time it seemed plausibly do-able.

Out of everything, the Doodlesphere was likely the only reason they had lasted as long as they did. Damn thing was so stable it was no wonder Error had never tried to mess with it.

In the end, though, they had failed.

Admitting it, even in an internal monologue, was rattling. Nightmare hated dwelling on mistakes. Especially his own.

He pulled himself out of his chair and out of his thoughts, finally standing up. Everything was so calm, so quiet. It made him suspicious. Making his way over to his door, he wondered briefly if he’d open it up to a vast nothingness. Thankfully, it just opened to the hallway. 

He strolled down the hall, down the stairs. His eye scanned everything around him, looking for any changes or mistakes in replicating his halls. He was a bit off-put by the lack of noise in his castle. He’d usually at least feel or hear some of his lackeys goofing off or getting into arguments. He found it almost serene, in a paradoxically infuriating way. 

Nightmare listened closer, a small frown tugging at the corners of his mouth.

He was alone in the castle. 

(Disappointing.)

With a huff, he realized he was wasting precious time, considering his circumstances. He needed to regroup with the others and come up with a new plan of action. 

He poured his essence into the floor, concentrating it in a magical burst to send him to a different universe. There was a poignant lack of emotion surrounding the universe which he resided in. In fact, he was having difficulty finding anything to travel to. Like it was all muddled, snuffed out. Had he somehow been blinded or deafened by the hit?

A cyan eye pulls into a grimace. Nightmare begins pulling himself outside of the universe that housed his castle. He needed to get to the bottom of this.

He reformed in a quiet whisper, taking a cursory glance around. It didn’t take him long to realize what was wrong.

He noted the distinct lack of anything, anywhere, save for a permeating darkness that peered into his soul. 

There was only one place as dark and brooding and empty as him, and that was the Void. 

He clicked his tongue, looking back to the universe he had just been in. Did Error transport everyone into the void? Would he have to go on a wild goose chase to find everyone? He dreaded the idea.

Every coordinate he was used to traveling to seemed out of reach. Even something as simple as the Doodlesphere was proving difficult to find. Now that he knew where he was, though, it was only a matter of time until he found his way out. At least, if it were anything like the Antivoid. Which he dearly hoped it was. He wasn’t looking forward to hundreds of years in voided isolation. 

What could he say? He was a people person. Especially if those people were suffering. Old habits die hard.

After an hour or so of aimless teleportation, he finally found a connection. There were other timelines, as he had hoped, this one in particular was heavily reliant on the void. With a burst of energy, he slinked out of the ground into a wooded area, snow immediately pelting him as soon as he rose.

He could feel the emotions of several hundred in this universe, and he felt comfort in the influx of new negative energy. Being stuck in an emotional black hole wasn’t extremely good for his health. He focused on those feelings of frustration, flexing his hands and stretching his body as he stopped relying on his negative reserves.

He hummed, ignoring the snow hitting his skull as he paced. As far as he knew, all universes had been wiped out during the fight. There shouldn’t be anything left. 

Nightmare lifted a hand to watch as the pale snow landed on his fingertip, in sharp contrast to his bones.

He faintly remembered Error and Dream talking about a second chance, but he still wasn’t entirely sure what this meant. 

The most obvious answer would be a multiversal reset, but that wasn’t possible as far as he was concerned. There was no code or command that would commit such a feat. Error went on a long, heated rant about how it would be useless to even try, that it was impossible. A great feast, he’d considered it. Error was always so passionately angry about things, it was like tossing fistfuls of candy at him.

With another burst of energy, he drew himself back into the ground, transporting himself to the Anti-Void. The snow was left with no stain.


	2. Yarn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nightmare takes a look at the mess that is the Antivoid. Or well, lack thereof.

He pulled himself up with a grunt, squinting at the bright white that the Antivoid was known for. It reminded him too much of purity and innocence, something he absolutely abhorred. Nightmare scanned the area around him. 

Empty. 

To be expected, of course, it was the Antivoid.

He began his trek with a narrowed eye and a shriveled expression. There was no telling the ground from the ceiling or any potential walls that could even exist here. He almost wished Error would paint bright red arrows on the ground directing him to the place he inhabited. Trying to find him in this place was infuriating, especially when he landed in one of the emptier parts of the Antivoid.

Each of his steps, purposefully, left behind a slight stain. It served as validation that he was not endlessly walking in place.

…

…

…

Nightmare looked behind himself with a bitter expression.

His marks were fading.

The Antivoid was likely sucking the code off of its surface, and he wasn’t sure if it would soon do the same to him. They had never stuck around long in Error’s base of operations, considering the sheer amount of paranoia a lone man could harbor in his thick-boned skull, and the slight tremble that would come to Ink’s hand at the blinding white. To Error’s annoyance, his brother usually redirected their meetings to Ink’s house in the Doodlesphere.

His mouth twisted sourly at the thought of his brother. That battle in the dark was only just that - a battle. Just as what was written in the truce, once they finished addressing the new issue, everything would go back to normal. It would be “right” again. 

Nightmare frowned at his train of thought. No use in clouding up logic with senseless emotional sentiment.

“Right.”

The ground clicked with his footsteps.

He allowed himself to wade further in thought. 

Error’s expressions, frozen in terror or frustration during a reboot, had always stuck in his memory. It was interesting, the way his eyes would widen or his pupils would shrink. So were the brief flashes of gut-wrenching terror on Ink’s pale face in the Antivoid. Both, of course, were heavy and filling, like a rich meal. 

He crept back out of his mind, looking up in search of any strings or misplaced souls. He continued walking like that for a while, knowing there was probably no one around for miles to see him walk aimlessly like a fool. Then, he saw the sharp contrast of red and blue in the distance.

Nightmare stopped, after ages of walking, and made a low noise of thought under his breath. 

There was Error’s lumpy, stolen couch. The wretched, uncomfortable thing still looked like a sea slug or an abused sponge. He regret ever sitting on it. 

Where was its crabby owner?

He continued to sweep the area for more clues and tells of Error’s presence.

Surprisingly, he couldn’t spot a single piece of paper anywhere. Error was known for hoarding notes and writing absolute novels worth of battle plans and ideas. Eccentric is what Dream described him as. Crazy would be a much more simple and fitting term. He slowly walked forward.

Even more odd, were the numerous tables and chairs that had seemingly gone missing. Once Error had started insisting that their meetings be hosted in his domain, he began stealing more furniture for them to use. At some point Error even brought in a whiteboard. He loved that stupid whiteboard.

While vague memories of Ink and Error endlessly yabbering during meetings-- the extent of which was excruciating-- played in the back of his mind, he crouched down to check if Error’s chocolate stash had been relocated.

There was no real reason in particular. He simply liked to steal from Error and watch him pin it on Ink. Their arguments were especially amusing when he was directly involved in them, and neither knew.

A dark tendril searched beneath the couch, scoring Nightmare a chocolate bar only slightly unwrapped. He frowned, holding his prize. There were bits of dust on the wrapper. 

There should be more than this, he thought. Error had begun hoarding tons of chocolate ever since the universes started falling apart. His main source had just disappeared one day, and it threw him into a frenzy that left him grabbing bars by the dozens, raiding entire universes and hiding them away in his white void. There was no way Error would just up and forget about something he obsessed over. He impassively pocketed the large candy bar, standing and stretching.

“What the fuck are you doing.”

He didn’t turn around, though his shoulders tensed at how the voice came from behind him.

“Oh, there you are. I’ve been looking for you for hours.”

Nightmare hated it when people stood in his blind spots. Error should have also known that as well, because Nightmare fought him over it. Constantly. He mentally added that to his growing list of discrepancies with a thoughtful frown.

Turning around to find the local AU exterminator standing a few feet away, on the offensive, Nightmare quickly found himself even more infuriatingly puzzled. 

His eye narrowed a bit, and the buzzing static around Error quickened in pace. He realized Error was expecting a different response when the uncomfortable silence began to settle in.

“What are  _ you  _ doing?” Nightmare asked, staring him down. There was too much to be done to be quarreling over trivial things. This wasn’t the time for Error to be territorial.

“You’re in my area, anomaly,” he snarled. “You wanna tell me what you’re doing with my stuff?”

Nonchalant, Nightmare raised a browbone at him, dismissive in body and in tone. “This is mine, I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Clearly, Error just needed a reminder knocked into him. Perhaps his memory was leaving him, like Ink. 

He dodged a few rapid bone attacks, watching them whistle past him and pelt the misshapen couch with some small, burning sparks of vindication. Not one to dodge and dance around exclusively during battle, he lashed out with another tendril, picking up the ruined couch and throwing it at Error. 

Error ducked his flying couch with a noisy, static screech of disbelief and anger, squatting on the white ground. The ERROR signs floating about him glitched rapidly in response to his volatile emotions. Another scream of frustration built up in his chest.

_ “GET OUT!”  _

His voice crackled and popped, echoing in the Antivoid’s vast emptiness. The couch landed a few feet away from them both with a loud crash, bones jutting out of its material like spears.

“I have a few questions for you, first,” Nightmare replied without batting an eye. Error spared his ruined couch an incredulous glance before looking back at Nightmare and glaring viciously.

“What the hell do you want?”

Nightmare paused for a moment, a finger on his mouth in contemplation. His brow raised and his eyelight flicked to meet Error’s.

“Where’s the whiteboard?”

  
  
  


Error was taken aback. He was so shocked at the mundanity of the question he actually failed to answer for a few seconds. He expected something dramatic like “ohh you killed my family I’m here to avenge my friends” or something stupid like that. But… a whiteboard??

“That’s your burning question?” He asked incredulously. What he really meant was, ‘You threw my couch at me for  _ that _ ?’

“Yes,” Nightmare said, matter-of-factly. He eyed the lack of furniture around the Anti Void once again. It seemed he was missing something.

Error smirked and huffed out a laugh before completely breaking into a fit of laughter. This anomaly was clearly missing a few marbles. He wiped a tear from his eye, looking up at Nightmare before breaking back into a fit of giggles. Finally, he stood up straight, the humor spent from his body.

“You’re absolutely hilarious. I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he stated, the anger from their short-lived battle seeping into his voice.

Nightmare’s hands clenched slightly. Ah. This wasn’t good. The pieces were starting to be put together in his head, one clicking after another. He pocketed his hands, smirking.

“Really, now? That’s funny. I could’ve sworn you had one in here earlier. No papers either, hm? You’ve really taken cleanliness to a whole new level,” Nightmare tried for the final time. His hopes weren’t high.

Error scoffed. “Papers? What do you think this place is, the Doodlesphere? I’m not like that abomination.”

In a moment of rare clarity, Error realized that he hadn’t threatened Nightmare enough yet and pulled out his strings. There was far too much talking going on and not enough kicking his opponent’s ass into dust. He didn’t bother to preface his attack with anything except a grin, charging forward and whipping his strings towards Nightmare with the intent of capturing his soul.

Nightmare slunk down into the ground, slithering a few feet behind Error before reforming. 

“If you’re going to fight me like a dog, then so be it,” he said with an amused tone. He shot his tentacles towards Error with fearsome might, jumping out of the way as Error barreled towards him again.

The two fought for a few minutes, Error’s attacks growing stronger and more complex as they fought. Error began to laugh wildly as he once again threw his strings at the other, aiming for Nightmare’s ankle. Above his shoulder, a beam buzzed in the jaws of a large blaster, before firing at Nightmare’s other leg.

“I haven’t had someone last as long as you since Ink.”

“Don’t even compare me to him. Your standards are so low I could walk over them.”

Nightmare sidestepped the ray, clicking his tongue. The strings narrowly miss his legs as he uses one of his tentacles to lift his lower half off the ground. He leaned against a thin tendril, the others flying towards Error. Nightmare’s assailant circled him, pulling more strings out of his sockets and dodging his attacks with manic glee and anger.

Nightmare sighed. He was wasting time with this silly game.

He slipped into the floor as Error tried to attack him from behind with a quick step of teleportation and malicious laughter. Nightmare popped up again a few feet away, distancing himself.

“As fun as this has been, I must be going. I have business to attend to,” Nightmare announced, making a v-sign with one of his hands before slinking into the floor with more haste, transporting himself back to the safety of his castle. 

Error’s indignant barbs were left delayed indefinitely. Instead, he screeched in anger, metallic and loud, his frustrations echoing throughout the Anti Void.

Nightmare appeared in his bedroom with a breath. He smirked, sitting at his chair before his desk. There was nothing like a good warm-up, but there was something missing from his table. He scanned it.

Ah, coffee. Usually he left his mug in the corner, where it wouldn’t spill on any paperwork. He could vaguely remember taking it to the kitchen to be washed. Nightmare’s eye was caught by the notes on his desk, recognizing Error’s handwriting.

It took a few moments for the reality of the situation to settle in. In his moments of confusion, his mind wandered to a distant memory.

\----

“What are you, an old man now? You’re up here so much it’s like you’re senile.”

Nightmare turned his head a little, eyeing Error as he climbed up the stairs to meet him, carrying a woven basket full of various knitting knick knacks. It was a cold night, the moon brighter than ever shining down on the two of them, high above the ground at the top of one of the castle’s towers. Everything around the castle was visible from this spot.    
  
Calm and quiet, it was a common place to collect their thoughts and take a break from the chaos and chatter, common enough that they eventually just moved some chairs up so they could sit on something that wasn’t the cold hard concrete.

Not one to take a quip from one of his peers with hurtling a barb back; Nightmare immediately responds, the insults falling from his mouth with vicious enthusiasm. “Take a closer look in the mirror, Error. You’ve got a wicker basket of yarn, a pair of needles, and your glasses are so thick you might as well replace them with tortoise shells. The only old man here is you, and you can’t even see it.” 

Error sneered as he plonked down in the chair next to Nightmare. “I can see well enough to whoop your ass, even with my so-called ‘horrible eyesight’. I’ve knocked you off your feet plenty of times.”   
  
“And somehow Ink has always been there to steal your glory.” Nightmare replied. Error pulled a ball of yarn from his basket, absentmindedly unrolling it. The beginnings of a blue and purple scarf sat below the unraveled yarn. He scowled as he picked up his needles, recounting his battles with Nightmare and scowling deeper when he remembered all the times Ink would interject for his own entertainment. He grumbled something about how it wasn’t fair, but any voiceable anger was set aside as he began to knit.

The steady click of Error’s needles filled the silence between them. 

Eventually, Error had to interrupt it. Of course he did, he always did, Error couldn’t stop talking.    
  
“This truce thing is so stupid!” He began. “Giving me way too much time to do what? Nothing? Think about our impending doom some more? We have to wait until next week to talk about that!” Error threw his hands up in the air, the needles tugging his creation a bit lopsided. He put a momentary pause on his ranting to adjust the yarn, grumbling to himself at his own blunder. Fidgeting for a second longer, he set his needles and yarn down to continue his rant.    
  
“What else am I supposed to do while I wait? It’s not like I can fill my time with universe destruction anymore because  _ someone else is already doing that for me _ !!” He stood up, yelling it out to the world as if it spite him. He turned to Nightmare, who had at this point gotten comfortable in his chair for the show. With a content smirk on his face, Nightmare calmly met Error’s wide eyes. Encouraged, he continued. “Every time I try and do my own research, Dream’s already gotten the information! It’s stupid! I can’t even help! This truce is stupid. This is stupid.”

He turned away from the eye contact and began to walk in circles, gesturing wildly. “And what, am I just supposed to let the ‘Star Sanses’ handle everything? I’m supposed to be part of this too! It’s not like we signed that truce to twiddle our thumbs for weeks at a time! I’m not going to let myself get one upped by a walking fruit and Ink of all people!”

Error threw his hands in the air again and let out a scream before promptly sitting back down at his chair, where he’s made a circle to, and continuing his knitting with a huff and a scowl.

Nightmare thought he was done, preparing to mock him, but Error spoke up again, calmer this time.

“I spend a lot of my time watching Undernovella these days. Did you know Asgoro gets arrested in the newest season? Incredible, I tell you!” He exclaimed, now focusing more on the needles than what he was saying. “I honestly didn’t think I’d ever be able to slow down like this and just… do whatever I want. Well, except for destroying disgusting universes that shouldn’t exist, but that’s besides the point.”

He held the needles closer to his face as he noticed one of his loops was too small, adjusting it so he could continue his pace without inconsistency bugging him. “It’s… kind of nice. I guess. I just wish I could do more to help. I don’t... want this all to end, you know?”

His scarred hands gripped his needles tighter now, as he barely managed to get his final words out. “I’m really glad I get to talk to you like this. Glad to know you or.. something… or other…”

Error’s eyes averted Nightmare entirely, to the point where he turned his entire body away from him, now knitting furiously to combat the growing embarrassment he felt for saying something so vulnerable.

In a burst of energy, Error turned to face Nightmare with a comically aggressive expression, “Whatev-!”

“Feeling’s mutual,” Nightmare said nonchalantly, cutting him off. He had his hands behind his head, staring at the setting moon in the distance.

Error’s eyes widened. He lowered his needles as he turned to Nightmare. In an instant, his embarrassment melted away into something calmer. His fingers tingled with nervous energy as he slowly leaned back in his chair, beginning to knit again in earnest.

“Oh,” was all he could manage to respond with. It didn’t matter, Nightmare could tell how he felt about it anyway.

Slowly, the moon began to give way to the sun, the sky becoming a gentle wash of color. Nightmare listened to the easy and rhythmic ‘tap-tap-tap’ of Error’s needles, eager and ready for the new day.

\----

As if being struck by lightning, he was back. Dull, quiet, empty. Nightmare inhaled sharply, his shaking hand finding its way to his chest. There was a quick thrumming coming from the back of his head, and his concentration wavered between his desk and steady red fingers wrapped in blue yarn.

He focused on the writing, his hand wrinkling his shirt with how hard he gripped. 

A deep, slow exhale.

Error.

Didn’t know who he was. Didn’t know about the notes. Didn’t know  _ anything _ .

He stumbled as he stood, grimacing at his own stupid emotions. The table shook a bit, the little trinkets he allowed himself to hoard and collect out of mindless sentimentality bumping into one another. They tinkled.

Coffee. He needed coffee. 

He made his way down the hall, a hand on the wall to steady himself. It dragged along behind his slightly hunched shoulders. One eye darted around from the floor to the walls and then the ceiling, bouncing around in a silent beg for anyone to appear in the halls - but no one could arrive to disrupt his raucous mind.

Within his usually organized thoughts were loud doubts and aching anxieties. Suddenly he could not just silence them or swallow them whole, and he was reduced to the person he was before the bite of an apple. He kept repeating to himself what he was doing, why he was hobbling down the hallway to the kitchen, but this wasn’t something easily contained within his mindless worrying.

What did this mean for the others? His situation, their last words, what he heard? 

What did this mean for Error?

For Ink?

…

His brother?

His entire body stuttered, and he found himself crashing to the floor. The thud his shoulder made, upon impact with the carpet, was muffled and quiet.

Slowly, he turned to lay on his back, watching the light above him flicker a little. Maybe he’d just lay here for a while. Become a puddle. (His browbones pinched. Just as quiet as his downfall, he countered that stray thought. No, he couldn’t do that. There was too much to do. There was always something for him to do.)

The light above his head was round and yellowed with age. One eye traced its glow, squinting slightly.

Where was his idiot of a brother, anyway? He wondered to himself. They never really got along well, especially after the apple incident, but the multiversal truce had allowed them to reconcile a lot of their differences. Things almost seemed, he dare say it, calm between them.

… 

He hated it. 

It made him actually care sometimes.

Sometimes.

… 

He sat up, looking at the familiar walls of the hallway. Dark palms brushed off unseen dust from his sleeves. Deeply hidden anxieties were organized into stacks, and slipped away into folders and time slots for ‘later’. Right now, he needed to plan his next moves very carefully. But most importantly, he needed more information.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THIS WAS A LOT OF FUN TO WRITE! Sorry about the delay in chapter posting, but we hope this extra long chapter can suffice. Error and Nightmare being good buddies is fun, and also painful in this context.


End file.
